Help Desk Rage
Watch out, StinKerr, Bulldog, etc. Better let me do the talking.
Laws protecting people from competition (always “unfair” when you lose) have an uncertain record: Europe, USSR, North Korea, Albania, Trashcanistan… I’ll bet it’s different this time. It always is—ask the unions.
Posted by Oink
11/17/2005 at 02:23 PM
FRANK: YOU ARE PISSIN’ ME OFF!
I heard that a British firm was sending Indians to language school in East Anglia so they will learn that rather provincial accent. Not a bad idea.
Of course, tho I sympathize with the abuse these guys take, I do like the way the Debalina does the generalization thing. Sort of like saying all Indians are greedy snotty little shits just becasue the guy down the street at the Goodness Gracious Gas & Go is like that.
Here is a really funny view of the tech support issue, but as it has some naughty language, so not for cube performance. I’ll let my little pal Abnastahdreefoopadoop tell you about it.
Tanks, dehr, Rrrrickvid. Well, pfrum da men pedg, please be going to da “toons” link and be clicking on da picture of my cousin Dipshapoojidan dtitled “Tech Support” or “Tech Support II.” Tank you beddy much, oh my golly gosh.
Firstoff, I’m happy than someone whose name ends in ‘nk’ is taking heat from Da Bossman, and it isn’t me.
I sympathize with anyone struggling with a new language. Not so much with the person who placed him in a job dealing with the public. Halfway intelligent people can understand an accent—yea it depends. My Mom’s kidney Doc described himself as a “euro LOJ ist”. Jeez, you’d think he could learn to pronounce that.
Posted by Oink
11/17/2005 at 05:04 PM
No one ever masters English. I’m pretty good, but I continually slaughter the King’s English.
Bob, private companies can do what they want. Just keep English on ballots and official documents.
Posted by Oink
11/17/2005 at 06:04 PM
My hearing isn’t as good as it should be, the wrong pitch of voice amplifies the problem,
throw in a strong accent and it’s time to hang up.
Posted by piccalo
11/17/2005 at 06:24 PM
Ha, I was a field service tech for a machine tool company. I often got calls from native born Americans and some were quite humerous after the fact. I tried walking people through involved procedures so they could get their PCs running again and often it was an exercise in futility. I spent the 4th of July at a customer site because their IT guy didn’t believe me when I said that it would take longer to fill out the paperwork than it would to fix the problem. I spent 5 minutes fixing the problem and 15 filling out the paperwork. Not bad getting double time but I wanted to be home.
One time an IT guy called and said that his PC was down and the tape backups were all bad. Several months before I had stopped by to take care of another issue and told him “DO NOT use the tape drives for PCs in a machine shop. The tapes are far too temeperature sensitive, the drives too flaky to withstand the high vibrations from the equipment. He ignored me at every step. Call came in and I said “do you remember me telling you specificaly NOT TO USE the tape drives?” Answer” “but you are a field service tech and don’t know anything about IT issues.” At that point I wanted to hang up on him, but instead chose to be polite through clenched jaws. I told him what he had to do and the procedure to follow. During this talk I was continually interupted and shortly before I was going to arrange for a service call $$$$$$ to do the work myself he shut his pie hole. He finally got what I was telling him. The next day I called back and asked him how the machine was running and got “the network addresses were wrong and we had problems.” I asked him if he was going to ignore friendly advice again and was hung up on. Later I went to work for the same company this IT guy worked at and was met by open hostility. We had one of the equipment PCs go down and this guy struts out there to ‘fix’ the problem. I saw him run a directory, pull up the drive configuration screen for the faulty drive and bounce around some pretty inconsequential other screens and pronounce the drive ‘fixed.’ I told my boss that the guy was dangerous and didn’t know his head from his ass. The bad thing is that he thought that he could bullshit me. I knew at that time that NT has very little in the way of embedded diagnostics and that when he said he’d run diagnostics I nearly pissed myself laughing.
When you have people who are nearly illiterate when it comes to PCs, anyone, and I do mean anyone can baffle them with bullshit if their line sounds good. I try to establish a person’s computer skill level with PCs then attempt to drag them up to where I am at. Sometime successful but most often am met with the dear in the headlight look.
"Are you in Windows?”
“No, I’m in Indianapolis.”You can almost smell the smoke from their teeth grinding.
{WHOA! I see that frank has my old Avatar} It may be changed back by the time you read this.
Posted by Oink
11/17/2005 at 07:43 PM
No, you keep it. It’s better than the next circle down: Michael Moore.
Posted by Oink
11/17/2005 at 07:50 PM
Hey Kirk,
You wouldn’t happen to be a hiring authority in RTP by any chance? LOL. I’m relocating the family to NC from the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts.Raydog
Posted by Raydog
11/17/2005 at 07:59 PM
Sorry, but not in hiring authority - anywhere. I’m going back to field service a week from Monday (something to do with present job being a bait and switch-promises made and never kept thing). If you have experience in machine tools, are very (and I do mean very)computer literate, and like to travel (last year I was traveling I was home for 20 days in eight months) email me off line and will put you in touch with those that are hiring authorities.
FYI any crap emails I get will result in the emailer running up against Mailwasher blacklist.
OCM: Some Brotherly advice—keep a low profile here. Observe the “Dipshit” Avatar on The Blogger Formerly Known As Frank. I like puzzling out stuff I don’t understand. I’d do this type of work if I had my life to live over. Plus, no matter how complex & sophisticated the technology is, we still have the same old human beings involved. I advised my sons to consider administration as they get older and perhaps start to fall behind the cutting edge of technology; good administration is always needed.
Posted by Oink
11/18/2005 at 08:55 AM
I’ve never had to call anyone with a computer problem.........am a Mac user & the few problems I’ve had over the years are taken care of by local techs & always to my satifaction...........My problem is usually with my DSL provider Charter Communications - when my DSL service goes down my calls are directed to someone in Kentuckey who usually royally screws everything up.........Luckily my next door neighbor works for Charter Communications & can fix whatever problems I have in an instant............
Posted by Dottie
11/18/2005 at 10:15 PM
When I started wandering the highways and byways in machine tool service someone told me that the day would come when I would wake up in a motel room and have to pull out the phone book to figure out where I was. I thought he was bullshitting me. I was wrong. It finally happened.
Never had that one happen - yet. The one I always feared was waking up one morning and being the the wrong city or finding out I just missed my flight.
Yeah, I had finished a job in Ft. Wayne and headed for South Bend. Weather turned lousy and I was tired. Saw a “Horrible Inn ™” sign and pulled in there. The next morning I had to check the phone book for my location.
Kerr, you still doing the road warrior bit?
Nope, not any more. I did it for eight years for an OEM then fifteen on my own hook, subcontracting to them when they got in a tight spot. Got a factory job fixin’ welding robots and loved that for four years. Presently between jobs.
It seems that they want twenty year olds with thirty years experience any more.
Stin: I’ve been between jobs. It has an uncanny resemblance to unemployment.
Posted by Oink
11/20/2005 at 08:56 AM
Yes, it does. The difference in this case is that there are no benefits available.
Kerr, check your email.
Thanks, Kirk, will reply shortly.
